It's Different This Time
by Thalius
Summary: He didn't realise how deep his words cut her. Past skin and muscle and bone, straight to the marrow. Straight to her core. Or, the aftermath of Nate and Elena's argument in Madagascar.


_I had to protect you._

 _It's different this time._

 _I don't even care about the treasure._

He didn't realise how deep his words cut. Past skin and muscle and bone, straight to the marrow. Straight to her _core._

And what he _hadn't_ said—what his actions had said for him—was even more painful, even more difficult to breathe around. _I can't trust you with this. We aren't a team. You'd just get in the way._

She thought—God, so _stupid—_ thought that Nate had grown out of this. Become more than some obsession and really seen her as a partner now.

He'd told Sullivan about this whole expedition. He'd told his mysterious _brother._ They both had known the truth, probably right from the beginning.

But not her. She was just his _wife._

The parking lot of the motel was mostly vacant except for one or two cars and a few Vespas. She made a beeline to her vehicle, wanting at least some sort of privacy before she was overwhelmed with the need to scream and kick and _rage_ at what he'd done. Again.

The door handle of her car was sticky from the heat and humidity and when she touched it, the plastic expanding and making it difficult to open. She jerked at it, her fury now directed at her car door.

"Open!" she barked, pulling on it with much greater force than was really needed. "For fuck— _open!"_

She gave it one last powerful yank and felt something bend under her grip, and her hand broke away with half the handle in her grasp. With an angry, half-swallowed scream she hurled it over the fence, and it made an unsatisfyingly quiet thud on the ground on the other side. She'd have to climb around the passenger seat to get in her car now, but she didn't have the patience for opening another door at the moment.

She braced her hands on the roof of her vehicle and ducked her head between her arms, trying to calm down. She couldn't drive while she was this angry. She'd just get herself killed, or run someone over. Elena took deep, shuddering breaths, counting out heartbeats in her head. It didn't really help, but it was a nice distraction from her thoughts.

"Elena."

She jerked up, idly thinking she should have kept that broken handle to wedge it into whoever was calling her name. In the moonlight, she saw the flash of silver hair and cigar smoke, and relaxed.

"What?" Sully wasn't Nate, but he'd played along with the lie. No one even _thought_ to just tell her the _truth_ —

"I'd... ask how you're feeling, but—" he shot a look at the broken door, letting his gaze finishing his sentence for him. He stepped closer, and his face was calm and melancholy. She leaned against the car and crossed her arms, trying to get her hands to stop shaking.

"So, what?" she asked again, not bothering to keep the bloody edge out of her voice. "You come out here to apologise for him?"

Sully shook his head and let out a short huff of cool laughter. "Lord, no. He can do that himself when he gets the balls to come talk to you. I just got kicked out, and I thought someone should see how you were doing."

"What?" It felt like that was all she was saying, but none of this night was making sense.

"May I?" he asked, gesturing to the car. She inched over and let him lean on it beside her. He took a drag of one of his seemingly endless supply of Cubans, and gave her a sympathetic look. "Nate's really being an idiot."

She snorted, an angry, cold sound with no humour in it. "Why'd he yell at you?"

"Because I told him this whole thing wasn't worth it," he replied, gesturing to her. "But he usually doesn't take well to that sort of criticism."

She tightened her arms around herself, feeling her throat beginning to close again. It felt so horribly familiar—the lying, the fights, the anger—and talks with Sully about it all afterwards. She'd been stupid to think he'd changed.

"If it's worth anything," Sully continued. "I told him to tell you the truth."

She closed her eyes and bowed her head. "That makes it worse, actually."

It was Sully's turn to huff out a humourless laugh. Elena looked up at him, frowning.

"Did you know? That he had a brother?"

"I did," Sully responded, meeting her eyes. She tried to swallow the rage at his answer, and she watched him try not to wince. "Nate really had thought he died—and that was a long time ago. Took him almost full two years to get over it. We haven't talked about Sam in almost fifteen years—not until he showed up, returned from the dead." Sully took another drag on his cigar.

That wasn't surprising, really. Sully and Nate avoided emotional conversations with each other like the plague. It didn't make her feel any better, though.

"Does anyone else know?"

Sully raised a brow. "You mean like Chloe, or Cutter? No. And anyone who did know Sam, Nate lost touch with them, or they learned not to talk about it. Kid got in more than a few fistfights over just a mention about his brother." He paused, giving Elena a measured look. "Now, I'm not defending Nate—God knows he deserved every bit of that fight—but Sam… he isn't good for him."

Elena frowned. "Bad influence?"

Sully nodded. "Nate stopped hopping in and out of prison when his brother died. Er, 'died'," he added, making loose air quotes, his cigar wiggling in his fingers. "Cleaned up his act."

"Oh, so he switched to smuggling instead of home robberies?" Elena guessed, smiling despite herself.

Sully didn't reply with his typical humour—his expression was still sober as ever. "He kept away from crime that hurt people. Stole from assholes who deserved it." He paused, taking a puff. "Sam loves him, and Nate sure as hell loves his brother, but—we have very different ideas about what it means to be 'adventurers'. Sam would take any kind of work, no matter how dangerous, that would keep his brother fed and clothed—which I respect, but Nate was going to wind up dead if he kept doing dumb shit for money like his brother. Damn near did, a few times." He sighed and leaned his head back, rolling his shoulders, and Elena suddenly remembered his age. Sully looked so _old._

 _Maybe he didn't volunteer for this whole expedition, after all. Maybe this is him just protecting Nate all over again._

"They're different," he said to her, breaking Elena out of her musings. "That kind of work—Sam's good at it, but Nate isn't. Gets too caught up in the people involved and the ethics. Sometimes I think he's in the wrong business. I was… glad when Jameson hired him, even if we couldn't be partners anymore." Sully looked terribly forlorn at his own words, but the expression quickly passed. "Only someone like his brother could've pulled him back in."

There was a bitterness in Sully's voice that Elena hadn't heard before. "Sounds like you two don't get along well."

He scoffed. "Yeah, that's putting it lightly." He looked at her, obviously not wanting to elaborate. "Darlin', you've seen Nate at his worst, and by some miracle you managed to forgive him and put up with it all."

She looked away. "It was a mistake," she murmured. "He hasn't changed."

"Perhaps," Sully allowed, nodding his head. "But I think this is more about the fact that Sam hasn't changed, and Nate hasn't seen it yet. He's come a hell of a long way from the shithead teenager I knew when we met, and Sam hasn't had all the opportunities to screw up and grow up like his brother has."

"Well whatever quest they're on now—if it's not something worth telling his wife, I don't know why I'm here." She felt cold despite the humidity. She'd felt cold since she'd walked down the docks of Jameson Marine and saw Nate's boss standing there signing papers, instead of hauling cargo off the coast of Malaysia.

Sully sighed. "Nate's going hard at this. Harder than I've seen in a long time."

"Worse than Yemen?" she asked. She didn't know if she wanted to hear the answer.

"It's up there with Yemen, yeah," Sully murmured. "His brother is in real trouble, and that's why. Got a dangerous drug lord wanting him to find Avery's treasure."

"That's still no excuse to lie," she whispered.

"It isn't, but that's his reason." Sully shifted his weight, chomping on his cigar.

"We were—we were doing so _well,"_ she whispered after a moment of silence. "He seemed a bit bored, and I was feeling it too, but—" She shook her head. "I never thought he'd do something like _this_ again. Not after—after Yemen." They could've taken a vacation, or asked Sully if he knew of any old ruins that weren't swarming with mercenaries that they could go explore. Done _something_ together to switch up the rut they'd fallen into.

Instead, Nate did the worst possible thing.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart," Sully said, voice low. "That's all I can tell you. I'm not asking you to forgive him—just, think about the headspace he's in. Sam is—a good person, under all of it, but he's capable of manipulating his brother like no one else can. And Sam's in danger now, so nothing will stop Nate."

She nodded and closed her eyes. So that was it, then. The thought of flying back home and going back into their empty house and sleeping in their empty bed made her feel sick inside. Thoughts of calling up lawyers and getting divorce papers set up was even less appealing.

"So what now?" Sully asked her, and she opened her eyes. "You goin' back to the States?"

She swallowed hard. "I don't know," she whispered. "I don't—I don't know what to do now."

"My feeling," he replied around his cigar. "Is that Nate and Sam are going to get in some kind of trouble within the next seventy-two hours—and that's a generous estimate."

"And?"

"And I'd like to be close by when they do," he continued.

"I thought Nate gave you the boot."

Sully chuckled and gave her a look. "Wouldn't be the first time. He's usually pretty thankful when I pull his ass out of jail or a gunfight, though." He uncrossed his free arm and offered her a hand, his eyes warm. She grabbed a hold of his fingers and held on tight. His grip strong, and it was surprisingly calming.

"I'd like you to stick around, too," he told her. "I'm getting a bit—"

"—old for this shit?" she finished for him, then huffed out a laugh. "Yeah, me too."

"You're aging better than me, sweetheart." He pulled away from the car and grabbed her in a big hug. "And I'll need some backup," he continued over her shoulder. "If you want to stay."

She fisted her fingers into his ridiculous Havana shirt and buried her head in his shoulder, breathing in the smell of cigar smoke, sweat, and Sully's cologne. It felt like home.

"I'll back you up," she murmured. "Always. We can save our dumbass together."

His shoulders shook with laughter. "We can save our dumbass together." He pulled back and gave her a grin, then moved to walk around to the passenger door. "Let's go grab food; I'll tell you anything you want to know about Sam."

"Sully—" He stopped and looked up. She swiped a stray strand of hair out of her face. "Nate and I—we might be over. I don't—I don't know yet."

He nodded, looking grim again. "And I'm not trying to change your mind—well, no, I am. You're the best thing to happen to that kid," he added, jerking his head to the motel. "But he's not here right now, so I'll give you his side of the story, at least."

She nodded and grabbed at her door. "Okay. Just wanted you to know where we stood. Now can you, uh—open my door for me?"

* * *

 **AN:** Just a note that Sully's thoughts/feelings on Sam don't necessarily reflect my own (which are still partly undecided), but rather how he would feel about Nate and Sam's relationship. There's been a lot of discussion on tumblr about Sam in general, and this was somewhat inspired by all the conversation around Sam's character. Anyway, hope you enjoyed!


End file.
